Looking Ahead - October

Coming up in October we have second workshop of the year with Donna Grasso, who has been a member of the FCPS and an award winner as well. She is a fabulous artist.

When :  Saturday, October 26, 2019, 9 AM to 4 PM
Where:  North Shores Community Center, 120 Meadow Ave., St. Augustine, FL

$75 for members and non-members.

9am - 11:30

Importance of Composition

Composition is how we see information. It influences the relationships we see between objects, perceptions of complexity, and affects our desire to engage with content. Learning composition as a visual designer will allow you to make information appear in ways that convey different meanings, or leave different impressions, like sophistication, affluence, cleverness, or strangeness.

How to organize balance out of a chaos of elements

Use design principles in making visual decisions

Drawing from life - exercises utilizing class participants as well as still life set up.

AM Materials should include

drawing media to include pencil, eraser, and any other drawing media of choice

Drawing pad or paper- minimum 16 x 20

Drawing board - surface to have to make the drawing surface angled for ease and drawing accuracy

1:00 - 4:00

Utilizing am class information using media of choice - to compose a work of art from still subject set up.

Media of choice for afternoon session

The New Season

What:   Fall kick-off meeting
When:  Saturday, September 7, 2019, 10 AM to 12 noon
Where: Cultural Center at Ponte Vedra Beach

I hope everyone is looking forward to the upcoming fall season (and maybe some cooler weather?).  Our year will begin with a demo by Kevin Arthur who is a noted pastel portraitist. 

Kevin presented for us three years ago but we have many new folks since then and even us oldtimers can benefit from Kevin's approach.

The last time Kevin demoed for us his model was our own founder, Lyn Asselta. Who will be the model this time? Come to the meeting and find out.

Summer and Fall

We hope everyone has been having a great summer. We began summer this year with our workshop from Tony Alain, an amazing English pastelist.

All those who attended said it was well worth it.

And many who couldn't were able to come to his public demo on the Sunday following the workshop.

I hope everyone wound up in a painting mood and were able to enjoy getting things done over the summer.

Now our fall season is approaching and we hope you'll enjoy the things coming up.

Our fall kickoff meeting will be on Saturday, September 7, at the Cultural Center at Ponte Vedra Beach and we look forward to seeing one another again after the summer hiatus. Noted pastel portraitist Kevin Arthur will do a demo for us.

Then mark Saturday, October 5 on your calendars for our first plein air of the season at beautiful Alpine Groves Park on route 13 in Switzerland, FL, on the east bank of the St. Johns River.

And later that month we are having a one-day workshop with Donna Grasso on Saturday, October 26. If you don't know Donna yet you'll definitely want to.

So keep an eye open here and in the calendar and in your emails, and we'll have a lot more details coming up about upcoming events.

Tony Allain demo - time change

Some lucky folks are really looking forward to the Tony Allain workshop this coming Friday and Saturday. Tony comes to us all the way from England so it's quite a privilege to have him with us for a few days.

For those who are not attending the workshop Tony will be giving a demo for us on Sunday the 16th at 12 PM, so this will give everyone who wants a chance to see this wonderful artist.

NOTE: There has been a time change. The demo is now 12-2 PM instead of 1-3. Please note the new time

Ending the season

 President Carron Wedlund welcomed us all to our last meeting of the season before our summer break. We had a great turnout of about 27 people.

It was nice to see everyone to talk, and to take a look at the "flea market" items that other members had brought in to sell or even just give away. 

After the business meeting we went on to the day's event, the paint-around. Even though we had some 27 in attendance we was only 8 people volunteer for the paint-around, so we had lots of folks watching as we worked.

To recap how the paint-around worked, Carron selected four different photos as references for the event, and had two copies of each photo. We had two teams of four, on each side of the room. 

Each person chose a starting easel, and when the timer began had 15 minutes to get a start on the painting, based on the photo at their easel. When the timer went off each person shifted right one easel (with the person on the easel at the end right coming around to the first easel on the left) and got 15 minutes to work on the second painting, and then the third, and then the fourth.

After the fourth they came back around to their own original easel and had a last 15 minutes to make last minute changes to the painting they started with. Since each team worked from the same four references there were two paintings done of each photo, so it was lots of fun to see how the paintings came out. Here are the eight paintings from the paint-around, showing the different interpretations of the photos. At the end each artist got to keep the painting from their starting easel.

A good time was had by all, both the painters and the watchers! And then it was time for summer break. Some folks were headed off to the IAPS convention. Some looking forward to our upcoming workshop with Tony Allain, or the Tony Allain demo. Otherwise, see you in September.

Join the paint around

The next meeting is upon us, this Saturday, June 1. For this meeting we’ll have a paint around or multiple paint-arounds, depending on how many want to participate. Remember last September when we had 4 members in a paint-around? Basically the painters within each group paint 15 minutes then rotate to the next painting like musical chairs. This time we can have more 4-member paint-arounds going on at the same time. If you would like to participate, bring your pastels, a support and pastel paper. The reference pictures will be provided. The groups will be decided then.

We anticipate this will be a fun, no pressure, anything goes event, not to worry about producing a masterpiece. Those who don’t want to paint can observe and I expect there will be a lot to watch. It’s about the group activity of painting together, not necessarily about the outcome.

Also this Saturday we will accept nominations and vote on the new board. We need a new treasurer.  Jackie has the treasury very well organized to ease one into the position. And we need a new recording secretary. Please consider either of these positions. Our organization cannot function without them.

And finally we’ll have our garage sale. Bring any art related (or craft supplies) you’d like to sell or give away. Please have them priced with your name displayed.

Dutton plein air day

We were pretty lucky with the weather for our Dutton Island paint out, and Dutton is a wonderful place with lots of water and sky and salt marshes. Yet almost no one showed up! I know I was sick with a bad cold and couldn't face that long drive, but where were others?

Of course the night before was our juried show opening reception, and maybe many people were tired out from that long evening and were not up to getting up early in the morning to paint.

So Tish, Kim, and Carron were the only stalwart three who showed up to paint. But it does look like they had a nice morning to share with one another.

And each had fun painting something during the morning. Thank you Carron for sending me these photos of the day,